Hangovers are sometimes worth it. I cele...

Hangovers are sometimes worth it. I celebrated the closing of my birthday week last night/this morning with a good friend of mine, Ross. We had a ripper but didn't get too smashed which is always a good thing for me. Ended up dancing (yes, I danced) at Billy the Bums.

The Dirty Skirts, Rolling Like Thunder....

The Dirty Skirts, Rolling Like Thunder. Rocking.

What I want from DSTV for HD PVR: I want...

What I want from DSTV for HD PVR: I want to be able to access my decoder's record function remotely from anywhere. Mobile, laptop, internet cafe, whatever so that I can go on to the DSTV website, login with my client number, find the programme I am missing and hit "Record". Done.

I just received this in an email: "In...

I just received this in an email:"In a small town on the South Coast of France, holiday season is in full swing, but it is raining so there is not too much business happening.Everyone is heavily in debt.Luckily, a rich Russian tourist arrives in the foyer of the small local hotel.He asks for a room and puts a Euro100 note on the reception counter, takes a key and goes to inspect the room located up the stairs on the third floor. The hotel owner takes the banknote in a hurry and rushes to his meat supplier to whom he owes E100. The butcher takes the money and races to his supplier to pay his debt. The wholesaler rushes to the farmer to pay E100 for pigs he purchased some time ago. The farmer triumphantly gives the E100 note to a local prostitute who gave him her services on credit. The prostitute goes quickly to the hotel, as she was owing the hotel for her hourly room use to entertain clients.At that moment, the rich Russian is coming down to reception and informs the hotel owner that the proposed room is unsatisfactory and takes his E100 back and departs.There was no profit or income. But everyone no longer has any debt and the small townspeople look optimistically towards their future."

Nedbank client service blows. I have rec...

Nedbank client service blows. I have recently acquired a bond through Nedbank. I am VERY happy about this, they gave me the best rate and the best bond amount hands down. But I don't think that's enough. I wanted someone to phone me, to say well done, to see that I was OK, happy, alive, not robbing them. Etc etc etc. But nothing.Then enter SPAM. I have received two calls on two consecutive days from Nedbank client service research people asking me to participate in feedback client something-or-another. I told them my story and declined to participate. I also asked them to remove me from their database. Let's hope.

This is P2. A microblogging wordpress pl...

This is P2. A microblogging wordpress platform that inspired Automattic to start blogging again. I've noticed how Twitter has begun to eat in to my drive to blog. So I thought that this might be a solution to the problem.

Using twitter effectively as a blog

SA Rocks is a blog that I own and run. And Twitter is a service that I absolutely love using and am fast becoming addicted to. It's also a service that is replacing my addiction to blogging.This is clearly evident in this blog. I tweet my rants now, I don't blog them. That takes too long.But with regards to SA Rocks I have been trying to figure out a way to make effective use of Twitter. I've struggled as many have been doing. I haven't managed to integrate SA Rocks in to Twitter at all.I don't think that punting blog posts via twitterfeed.com is the right way to go. I really feel like that is just pushing content and gaining no return on investment whatsoever.So I am trying more of a social feel attempt at integrating SA Rocks in to twitter. The pull of SA Rocks is that people want to feel good about South Africa. I know I do. Now what I am looking for is reasons for people to feel rocking in South Africa in 140 characters or less.I will then take my favourite rocking @ifeelrocking replies and put them in a daily blog post and tweet that via @ifeelrocking.Let's do it.

Ashton Kutcher VS CNN - Celebstream VS Mainstream

Ashton Kutcher. The man is emerging as a social media genius. He is a top user on two of the hottest social media properties right now; Qik.com and Twitter.com.

Talya Goldberg raised an interesting point: By following @aplusk over @cnnbrk is it not reinforcing, notion that celebrity news/culture is more nb than what is happening in the world?

I think this is an extremely valuable debate that needs to take place.

Celebrity vs Mainstream Media

I studied Journalism at University. I wanted to be a journalist since I was 10 years old. I let that all go. I feel that world is shifting away from mainstream propaganda to celeb propaganda. Let's be real here, both are forms of propaganda. Who own what media organisation is becoming a massive blur between government organisations, private organisations in bed with government organisations and one-person-dictatorship run organisations. So who's to say that mainstream is more productive or beneficial than celebrity-generated news or information?

The Responsible Celebrity

It's not a habit of mine to follow celebrities. I am one of those information consumers who takes a variety of factors in to account when reading types of media. I try to know who owns what, who's in bed with who and how often they are meeting up. The same applies to Celebrities. I try to make up my own mind about who is an "honest" celebrity and who's just in it for the next big break. Social media has created a fair amount of transparency for celebrities who are willing to embrace the technology out there.Case in point is Mr Ashton Kutcher who has jumped head first in to Twitter and Qik. Kutcher and his wife Demi Moore are streaming their lives live as often as one can handle. Kutcher streams video live from his phone on Qik and is constantly tweeting. I like that, I can relate to that and I am sure that the almost 1 000 000 followers agree with me.With 1 000 000 followes just imagine if Ashton Kutcher was to endorse a fight against the shocking regime in Zimbabwe, or if he was to condone the killing of innocents in Tibet or anywhere else. He would have 1 000 000 people listening, responding and interacting with him and this information.This is where it becomes increasingly important for celebrities to become socially responsible people. Many are not and this is where the danger comes in. This is where mainstream media has the upper hand.

Ethics in the mainstream

It is generally accepted that the media is the Fourth Estate. The people who govern the people who govern. But who governs the fourth estate? No one ever did. Wait, that's a lie. There are groups of media leaders who form editors forums and sit and govern one another.There are trained journalists who are taken to task for factual accuracy and ethical reliability. This is all accepted. But do I care as a run-of-the-mill citizen consuming this media? No. Generally not. Nowadays it's so easy for me to get online and read the same story with variations of facts from a variety of media organisations.What I want is to make up my own mind. Just as the celebrities want to do and should be allowed to do so.

Celebstream is the new Mainstream

Recently celebrity has become the new hotness in every way. From their social media campaigns to flashing their under-areas to paparazzi to endorsing NGO's and social causes.So why would the same not apply to information resources?I am in no way saying that the celebstream is going to replace the mainstream. I am saying that the two are now heavily entrenched in society. The maistream is becoming a less and less trusted resource by the masses as citizens are taking ownership of their information and news. Celebrities are simply more popular citizens, leaders and trendsetters so they are setting the standards now. However scary a prospect that is, it's the truth.

Cassette and South Africa say "Fuck you" to Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

Please reblog this, tweet it, post it to your facebooks, myspaces, email it around and get the word across. Cassette is the only band that spoke up about anything relevant and important such as the elections coming up in a few days. Lets allow Red Jumpsuit Apparatus to hear our voices.

Two bands pull out of Coke Zero Fest - The press release

Thanks to Matt I have the official Coke Zero Fest press release:

Wednesday, 8 April 2009Coca-Cola Zero Fest 2009 is finally here this weekend. Thousands of fans are expected on Friday, 10 April at the beautiful Riversands Farm in Fourways Jo’burg, and the picturesque Lourensford Wine Estate in Somerset West on Monday, 13 April to enjoy a full day of high octane rock. Heavy weight artists OASIS, SNOW PATROL, PANIC AT THE DISCO, DIRTY SKIRTS, ZEBRA AND GIRAFFE, CASSETTE, FOTO NA DANS, aKING and ONE DAY REMAINS are going to give fans just what they have been waiting for-a rock spectacular with no compromise!!BIG Concerts, the organisers of Coca-Cola Zero Fest 2009, regrettably announce the cancellation of Bullet for My Valentine and The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus who were scheduled to perform at the festival this weekend. Both bands, who have concluded performance agreements with the promoter and have received payment in lieu of their performance, decided at the last minute to withdraw on their commitments to Coca-Cola Zero Fest 2009. The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus cited personnel changes, which impacted on their ability to perform at the Coca-Cola Zero fest, while Bullet for my Valentine cited studio commitments so they can complete their new studio album.BIG Concerts CEO, Attie Van Wyk said, “We are absolutely devastated by the cancellation of these two bands. Not only have they not fulfilled their agreements with us, but they have let their South African fans down in the biggest possible manner. And all at the last minute, leaving us in an unfortunate position of not being able to find suitable replacements at such short notice.”Zayd Abrahams, Coca-Cola™ Strategic Marketing Manager, said: “Coca-Cola Zero is disappointed by the withdrawal of The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and Bullet for My Valentine; we are however looking forward to the awesome performances from Oasis, Snow Patrol, and Panic! At the Disco and some of the best home brewed talent. All concert experiences that have been planned are going ahead and consumers can still expect a world-class production. “Bullet For my Valentine apologised to their fans in South Africa. Matt Tuck says: “We’re absolutely gutted to have to cancel these shows, we were proper looking forward to it, but we are really getting stuck in with writing new songs and we have a busy schedule to get everything prepared for recording the new album ‐ which we are all really excited about!”Fans have an added bonus this weekend, OASIS, SNOW PATROL and PANIC AT THE DISCO will play extended performances at Coca-Cola Zero Fest. The Fest has loads to offer this weekend - Big Sound, Bold Artists, Zero Heroes, Mist Angels, Chill Zones, Guitar Heroes and Zero Zones.

Meetings en masse or more relevant meetings?

This is a debate that I have raging in my head and strategies all-round at the moment.Is it more effective to have meeting en masse or to set up carefully planned and calculated companies, agencies and people to meet with?As I see it, Here are the pros and cons of having more meetings:ProsMore meetings mean more chance of work (really?).Meeting more people can lead to more connections.More people = More products.More meetings = more hype around your product.ConsMeetings are time-consuming.Statistically I feel like more meetings with less research and planning means less success.More meetings lead to less follow-up time and client relationship management.Time away from the office means time away from other responsibilities.And the pros and cons of have more relevant meetings:ProsMore research means a greater understanding of the company you are meeting with.Taking time to plan means providing a better pitch.Time is not wasted on fruitless meetings.You are able to manage and maintain relationships with key clients.Clients feel unique and taken care of.ConsIf meetings don't work out you are left with few options.Client contracts end. Then the process starts all over again if you've put all your eggs in a few baskets.This is not a particularly detailed list of pros and cons but the overall messages come through clearly I think.I am still struggling with the decision of committing my time to being out of the office at 5 or 6 meetings that might not prove to be valuable at all, or planning one meeting per day with an exceptionally well researched client who you think holds specific value with regards to specific projects you have planned or they have planned.It's probably a combination of both types of meetings in the end, but I hate that. I hate that I still have commit a chunk of my time to meetings that might not prove to be valuable, especially when I am leaving the office to do so. But it's part of the way things work I suppose.

Tiltshiftmaker.com - making the tilt shift photo easy

Justin tried his hand at Tilt-Shift Photography recently. I just discovered the site, tiltshiftmaker.com. It's incredible what you can find online.Here's what I managed to do in under 5 minutes using the site. It's not a great example, but it's clearly evident what the site is capable of. Great tool.The Original:The Tilt-shift:

Reprobates and bloggers - The Digital Edge Podcast

I'm still not convinced by the validity of the Podcast in the local market. Yet Saul and Jarred continue to try and prove me wrong. They've been doing a relatively good job of it lately and even went as far as to invite me on to the latest episode of the Digital Edge.You can download it or listen to it live by heading over to the Digital Edge website.From the site:

We speak to Nic Haralambous of SA Rocks, Seth Rotherham of 2Oceansvibe, Exmi from Expensive Mistakes Cheap Thrills, Shaun Oakes of Shaun Oakes.com, Jason Bagley from the Incredible Connection blog and finally Se7en from Se7en.org. We round up that line up with a summary of the blogosphere by Justin Hartman, head of blog aggregator Afrigator.

Nothing particularly groundbreaking came out of the bloggers interviews: We are all egotistical, we all like to win stuff, we all brag, blah blah blah. It's riveting blogger "Days of our living lives online" sorta stuff.Definitely worth listening to. Do it.And thanks to Saul and Jarred for having me on the show. Always a good boost to the ego hey?!

The Vida e Caffé tribe

The tribe is strong with this one.Last week (26 March 2009) saw the launch of the Vida e Caffé Twitter Account (follow them). I immediately followed them, then realised they were giving away free coffee to the first 60 direct messages. So I sent off a message and managed to get myself some coffee to collect soon at my nearest Vida, which happens to be Rosebank, Johannesburg.The very next day I decided to have a morning meeting at Vida e Caffé in Rosebank with my coffee and my mac. I paid for my coffee. I don't even care if I ever get my free coffee, it's the idea that matters, the offer that counts and the ownership I feel towards the brand that makes me loyal to the Vida brand.Hell, to be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure if I think there coffee is the best of the best, but I really don't care.Let me tell you why I don't care.I don't care if Vida has the best coffee because I like the service I receive when I order my coffee. I get smiles, jokes and laughs.I don't care if Vida has the best coffee because I like the way they operate their business.I like the placement of their shops. I like the vibe of the brand, the funkiness and the way they embrace the culture of South Africa in spite of the brand being more Portuguese.I like that their menu is simple and their food is good, however expensive it might be.Vida e Caffé has positioned itself as one of those brands that people would rather pay an extra R5-R10 for per coffee just to say it's a Vida coffee. Simple. People feel like they are getting more when they are paying more.The Vida e Caffé brand owns me and let me be clear here, I feel an acute ownership of the brand when I choose to have meetings there, drink the coffee or eat the food.

HSBC hit by email spammer?

I just received this in my Gmail account:

Good day,My name is Maria Norwood;I work with the Total Quest Services,a consulting Firm in London,UK. We are conducting a standard process investigation involving a client who shares the samename with you andalso the circumstances surrounding investments made by this client at HSBCBank Plc.The HSBC Private Banking client died intestate and nominated no next of kin toinherit the title over the investments made with HSBC Bank Plc.The essence of thiscommunication with you is to request that you provide us information on three issues:1-Are you aware of any relative/relation having the same surname, whose last known contactaddress was Madrid, Spain?2-Are you aware of any investment of considerable value made by such a person at the HSBCBank Plc.?3-Can you establish beyond reasonable doubt your eligibility to assume status of next of kinto the deceased?It is pertinent that you inform us ASAP whether or not you are familiar with this personalitythat we may put an end to this communication with you and our inquiries surrounding thispersonality.You must appreciate that we are constrained from providing you with more detailedinformation at this point. PLEASE RESPOND BACK TO MY PRIVATE AND DIRECT EMAIL ADDRESS;mrs.mariawood@gmail.com as soon as possible to afford us the opportunity to close thisinvestigation.Thank you for accommodating our enquiry.Yours sincerely,Maria NorwoodTotal Quest ServicesFor: HSBC Private Clients.This is a confidential message from Total Quest Services

Something smells fishy.

Urban Game Drive with VitaminWater

The Glaceau VitaminWater campaign started with "random" drops of test cases of VitaminWater to key people throughout the blogging community as well as key stores.I was fortunate enough to receive one of these trial cases with the various flavours and quirky messages on the bottles. I'm hooked.The marketing is fresh, the brand is funky and the product tastes good. It's apparently good for you too.But then I was asked to participate in an Urban Game Drive today.This is what we drove around Rosebank/Parkhurst area in:We drove around with a Gorilla in one of the chairs, a videographer in another and an "Urban Game Ranger". I was classified as a Sabretoothmongoose, you know, one of those people who sits in an office and pops their head over partitioning to see what's going on in the office around them, that's me, you, us as bloggers, apparently.We passed various urban game such as the carguarduselasaurus (or something to that effect) and stopped outside the magnificent Espresso in Parkhurst who after a while called the owner to forcibly remove us.The marketing is brilliant, every car we passed would have a head twisting to see what we were about, every person on the street would wave, kids were gawking at the gorilla to my left and I was reveling in the brand awareness being created.Here's the video and some more photos from my ride around town:

Why can't I say fuck? Oops...

I think I just did. Say fuck, that is. And what is so wrong with that.I rarely go in to a meeting where the words shit, fuck, bullshit or any other level of "cursing" isn't used anymore. And I think it's perfectly acceptable.I just read a blog post about "How to lose followers on Twitter" which one of the ten ways to do so is to swear. I just don't get it. It's a word like any other, it's in the dictionary and in years gone by it might've been frowned upon but alas, no longer.I also don't buy the stupid adage that states people who swear don't have the vocabulary to use another word. That is just patently untrue. I think my grasp of the English language is relatively good but I love using the word FUCK and SHIT and DICK and any other word that fits the profile. It assists me in emphasizing my point.So could someone please explain to me why Fornication Under Consent of the King (FUCK) is such a damn bad word? Please.Oh - and don't get me started on blasphemy.

The best pitch email I've ever received as a blogger

Below is an email that I received on Monday in my capacity as SA Rocks Editor/Owner. Read it first and then I'll go in to my reasons for liking the way it is structured (albeit coincidentally).

Hi Editor,You won't know me - I'm a big reader of 2Oceansvibe and was referred by a link there.Anyway, I'm going to take a flyer here - just drop a little bait and hope for a bite...I'm a music producer at the moment, studied at UCT and now living in Johannesburg trying to hit the big time. My record label has recently signed our first artist, a guy by the name of Timothy Moloi and are busy in studio recording his debut album. In the mean time, though, we decided to record a couple of live videos of him doing some covers of cool and interesting songs. Basically it's just a way for us to get word out, create as much of a buzz as we can. We've had an incredible response to them so far and I thought I would share the videos with you:www.youtube.com/user/TimothyMoloiNow, I'm sure that you must have MANY people pawning their wares to you, but as a blogger (and in particuler, a South African one), you undoubtedly act as one of the tastemakers of our generation and I figured it would be worth a shot to see if you would like any of the videos. My favorite is the One Republic cover (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4fiPe4U_Ow&feature=channel_page), but feel free to have a browse around and prove me wrong! All the artists on the videos are South African - hope you're impressed!I'm not too sure what to say from here, man. I won't beat around the bush - obviously it would be in my best interest for you to actually cover us on your blog and for that I would be incredibly grateful, but if not, a simple personal reply would be fantastic - another viewpoint to see what we're doing right!Look forward to hearing from you!

Let me break down the above email in to sections/reasons why I was taken by it and responded immediately.

References

The email references 2oceansvibe, I know I have a link in Seth's sidebar and therefore know (or feel) a little bit of legitimacy from the email's author.

Hope and a wish

The author openly admits that he is taking a chance. He isn't being too presumptuous and assuming that I will obviously respond and act. There are no orders coming from the email, there are hopes and requests.

Know the blog

James (the author of the email) clearly went and read SA Rocks. He knew that I liked local music, liked to help promote local artists and liked to support an underdog. So he appealed to these attributes with: "My record label has recently signed our first artist, a guy by the name of Timothy Moloi and are busy in studio recording his debut album."

Play on my field

Multimedia and new media content are integral to my world, it's how I make my living and how I interact with people. So it's a good thing James didn't tell me that he hated the internet and would never release any of Timothy's music online for the world to swipe. In fact, he did the opposite. He sent me links to a YouTube video of Timothy vocalising the hell out of a song I knew "Apologize" by One Republic. He had dropped the bait in my lake and I was not only staring at it, listening to it but chewing on it as hard as I could.

Play to my Ego

The crème de la crème, my ego. James played the game perfectly by stating the following: "Now, I'm sure that you must have MANY people pawning their wares to you, but as a blogger (and in particuler, a South African one), you undoubtedly act as one of the tastemakers of our generation and I figured it would be worth a shot to see if you would like any of the videos."How could any self-indulgent blogger possibly say no to a line like that? James got my, hook, link and sinker.

End the pitch

Do not linger, do not be verbose, do not become pedestrian and cliched. Write what you want to write, get it out, close it down and end the email. Do not linger. I hate it when I have to sift through ten paragraphs of shit to get to the point of the pitch. Say what you want and leave me alone.And here I sit blogging about James and Timothy and will be meeting with them very soon to see how I can help them in any capacity I can think of.James, well played. And to anyone who is trying to pitch to bloggers that might be reading this, take note: A good pitch will be responded to immediately and will have the bloggers commitment from the word Go.

Adgator - The good, the bad and the money

My very first reaction to Adgator was "Dammit that's my idea". It's that sort of a concept. One that everyone thinks they should've started because it's so glaringly obvious that it's needed that it should've been done months/years/ages ago. But it hadn't been done, not in South Africa and not in Africa on the scale that the Afriguys have planned.Being the sort of blogger that I am I was extremely excited to try out what Adgator was offering in the form of an alternative to Google Adsense. Before I continue let me just stipulate that I am going to try and be as open and forthcoming with my stats, numbers, figures and cash for the purpose of this blog post. I am not earning enough money from my blogs to warrant me being secretive. The point of this post is to help people understand Adgator and have a bit of faith in the service. I will be talking through my experiences with Adgator on SA Rocks.So when the site launched I immediately contacted Justin and managed to have SA Rocks accredited for Adgator ads. I chose to make use of the 300 x 250 ad space but more on that further down.

Potential

Initially I decided I wanted to know how much I stood to earn and luckily on the Adgator site there is a calculator that will calculate how much money you could earn according to your monthly pageviews.This is what I still see:Basically when I enter the number of pageviews SA Rocks did, according to Afrigator's analytics, from last month (16776) I am told that I should be earning over R2000 from Adgator adverts. Unfortunately this is not the case.Using February as an example according to Adgator the stats were:16587 advert impressionsR319.06 earnedThat is a fairly large discrepancy (R1692.86). However, let us go back and check through the Adgator estimator. If you look very closely underneath the blue bar above there is this:

* Projected earnings are calculated on a 50% revenue share and are quoted in South African Rand. In calculating this figure it is assumed that Adgator serves advertising for your entire inventory and that inventory has been filled by a client. All figures are estimates only and are subject to the rate agreed upon with each advertising client.

The theory

Now there is the tricky part. For me to earn the projected amount I would need to fill out my inventory with Adgator adverts, I would need a great rate to be agreed upon with advertisers, I would need there to be enough campaigns for the inventory on the site to be filled every day and night for the entire month. Then only will all of my page impressions become advert impressions and generate me the revenue that I am projected to be earning.The other major unsaid fact is that South African traffic is what is being bought the most by the advertisers on Adgator. This means that if you have 90% of your blog traffic coming from abroad you are in for poor times. With SA Rocks I've been lucky.So a quick display of these stats in regard to the Adgater estimator shows us:SA Rocks South African traffic according to Google: 12485 local page impressionsProjected Adgator earnings: R1498Unfortunately this theory is still not as sound as one might hope, but as I have already said there are many variables that come in to play.

Too many variables

Let's be honest, that is a lot of variables to earn a rand. But it is improving and will continue to do so as Justin and his small team of three grow and gather momentum. Advertisers will come to the party and begin to book out inventory months in advance.Unfortunately that is just not the case right now and I couldn't justify keeping the Adgator code on SA Rocks. So about a month or so ago, I took Adgator off SA Rocks. It wasn't earning me money, some of the stats were completely out of whack (in my head) and I just wasn't feeling justified in removing my Google Ads from the site. So I put them back.But let us be completely honest here, unless you are generating serious traffic (at the very least over 40 000 page impressions) then you are not earning in the thousands on a CPM (cost per thousand) basis, you are earning hundreds. But if you get it up to R500 that covers your DSTV for the month and that satisfies me for the moment.Since taking down my 300 x 250 Adgator ad code in the SA Rocks sidebar I have met with Justin Hartman, MD of Afrigator, and had a long chat with him about the revenue potential, issues surrounding the lack of earning, the way the systems works and it's all quite intriguing.

On the up

With December, January and February being relative unstable, confusing and disconcerting from the perspective of the blogger, March is definitely beginning to look up.I have already carried through an average of R22 per day in earnings. If this carries on for the whole month I'm looking at earning R660 in March. That's not bad. In fact that is almost enough for me to consider moving all of my inventory over to Adgator and have 4 ad slots generating that revenue which could take me up to approximately R2500 per month just from Adgator adverts.

The payment problems

The payment problem is not only hypothetical. It's practical. We are finishing the first week of March today and I have yet to receive a payment from Adgator. I am aware of tax issues that they had recently as Lester explains:

TAXWhen we tried to run the Adgator payouts, the good people at SARS had a few questions for us. The issue was raised about whether or not we should be charging you PAYE tax since you're earning money on Adgator. We were able to make them see that you are in fact selling us goods (your inventory) at a price (the CPM), and so there is no PAYE applicable. This was a lot harder than the two sentences above make it sound, which is where the first payment delay came in.INVOICESNow that we've settled the tax issue, SARS has requested that we get an invoice from you for the inventory you sell us. Quite frankly, this would be an administrative nightmare for both you and me, which is why we're working on a very clever invoicing system that will let you do everything with one or two clicks. Here at the Gator Pen we're all about simple, efficient systems.

Now with regards to invoicing on Adgator this was a major problem that has taken some serious innovative thinking on Justin's behalf to get it right. What Justin has now done is create invoicing software for all Adgator members. This solutions has provided multiple solutions to multiple problems. One of the main problems for me was that I couldn't choose when I received payment in terms of the amount. The minimum balance is R150 but what about my choice? Well with the new invoicing system I can choose when to send Adgator my invoices. The system will tally all of your earnings month on month and add it in to a new invoice every month. So if you delay sending through an invoice from January through April it will add all the revenue you've earned over that period and put it in to May's invoice which you can then choose to submit. This is a fantastic solutions that brings us close to the Google model of holding off payments until you are happy.

Overall

On the whole I have had quite a tumultuous time with Adgator. It's a love hate relationship that unfortunately must exist between bloggers and the people paying bloggers. I have the same relationship with Google too. I'm not satisfied that the best route forward for SA Rocks is Adgator and Google banners all over the show. I think content must be king and ads detract from the overall feel of a good, content based blog.The hard truth is that for the majority of bloggers in SA the personal audience is too small is relatively limited and only a handful of bloggers will earn enough money to do this fulltime. The advertisers are desperate to get to us as bloggers but previously couldn't. If you are involved in blogging only for the money best you cease and desist for the time being. If you want ads on your blogs to pay for your DSTV subscription then my advice is to have a good balance between Adgator and Google Adsense to allow you to maximise your opportunities.I am told that right now advertisers are clambering to get on to blogs (could you send them my way?). I firmly believe that if we give it time Adgator is going to be the place to be for local bloggers to earn money. I hear whispers of people earning R450 a day from one advert.I like to support Adgator because I can see the potential. As soon as Afrigator grows and there are more staff members selling Adgator to advertisers then bloggers will benefit greatly. But for now, keep the rands and cents ticking over while the market matures and we await our millions!

VW Rim FAIL

Today driving down Rivonia road I looked to my left and saw a VW Polo rocking some lekka cool maggs (Rims, Wheels). They were Mercedes... Mercedes wheels or rims on VW Polo...FAIL!